{"id":92378,"date":"2019-06-20T11:42:47","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/inside-life-on-the-frontlines-of-the-ebola-crisis-in-congo"},"modified":"2019-06-20T11:42:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:42:47","slug":"inside-life-on-the-frontlines-of-the-ebola-crisis-in-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/inside-life-on-the-frontlines-of-the-ebola-crisis-in-congo","title":{"rendered":"Inside Life on the Frontlines of the Ebola Crisis in Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/inside-life-on-the-frontlines-of-the-ebola-crisis-in-congo2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>On the frontlines<\/strong> of the Ebola response are local Congolese workers with temporary job contracts. They are often driven into this work by economic necessity, as well as a desire to help.<\/p>\n<p>Belinda Landu, a tall 28-year-old with long hair who radiates confidence, was making a meager living as a tailor in capital city Kinshasa before the outbreak. While visiting her mother in Beni last August, she spotted an advertisement for a health promoter. Today, she\u2019s passionate about her role: decontaminating the houses of confirmed Ebola patients. \u201cI want to stop the spread of the epidemic,\u201d she said. \u201cMy family understand I work here to help people. If we get Ebola people will help us too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When she arrives at the scene of a recent diagnosis, Landu changes into a full protective outfit, including a full plastic bodysuit, mask, hairnet, gumboots, and both latex and rubber gloves, and begins the slow process of covering everything \u2014 inside and outside a house \u2014 with a chlorinated spray. Locals gather around to stare at her. They\u2019re often terrified, she says, though she tries to be kind \u2014 speaking to them before she starts, and even stopping to play soccer with children after she changes out of her outfit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the frontlines of the Ebola response are local Congolese workers with temporary job contracts. They are often driven into this work by economic necessity, as well as a desire to help. Belinda Landu, a tall 28-year-old with long hair who radiates confidence, was making a meager living as a tailor in capital city Kinshasa [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,39,15,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-economics","category-habitats","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}